Spin doctor

I know that at least some of the handful of you who read regularly won't have seen the other recent links to this nifty illusion, so let me add mine here.

I saw her, instantly and with great conviction, engaged in a clockwise spin, and could neither make the figure switch direction nor even understand how it was possible to see her as spinning counterclockwise. K saw her in a counterclockwise rotation (yes, this is how we spend our "dates"... clearly, just a matter of time before we move in together) but quickly figured out how to mentally reverse direction.

The most helpful instruction he gave me was to use a piece of paper to cover up all of her except the "weight-bearing" foot, focus on reversing its direction, and only then remove the paper. That finally let me see the spin the other way, but she's still inclined to switch back if I take my eye off her for even a second.

Neat toy, but now let's visit the alleged "what it means" part. I put about as much stock in "right brain/left brain" as I do in Myers-Briggs, and not just because I am a person of ambidexterity, whose ostensibly colossal corpus callosum ought to be able to make that lady rotate on command like a tyro ballerina auditioning for the Kirov.

From reading others' comments on the illusion, there does seem to be an intriguing (anecdotal, of course) gender difference in perception here. But I'm far from convinced it means what they think it means.

Notice, for instance: when the figure spins clockwise, her center of gravity is different. She appears to be leaning forward more, and rising and falling on the flat of her foot, in a fairly realistic and naturalistic fashion. When she appears to spin counterclockwise, she's rising and falling on her heel and leaning too far back to be actually twirling in anything other than cyberspace. Is it possible that ingroup identification with the figure encourages women to arrive at the "realistic posture" interpretation first? This is not impossible; faced with apparently equal alternatives, our brain instantly deploys all kinds of subtle mechanisms to avoid the problem of Buridan's ass; we will, for example, "prefer" merchandise offered to our right even when it's identical to that on our left, and unconsciously generate a feasible-sounding rationalization to cover for our right-hand bias. We could further investigate by replicating the illusion with a spinning male figure (and yes, I know the illusion hinges on the side view, but, surely, that could be recreated with, say, a clothing silhouette or briefcase in the hand, or something).

Theory deux: Focusing on the lifted foot seems to encourage the clockwise perspective (which, so help me, I continue to see as the "correct" one). Gee, is there any reason men might first be drawn to the torso, rather than the foot? I'm thinking it isn't a "math/science/logic" bias, and it'd be easily confirmable with one of those gizmos that tracks gaze (oh, to be in grad school again). In short, before you get too excited about tidy binary categorical differences (I'm always fiercely skeptical of binary anything; nature simply seems to favor the messy continuum) in brain, behavior, or, especially, what appears to be gender-mapped traits, first cherchez le grand singe, I always say.

However, right before I saw this link, I was thinking about Weisman's book The World Without Us, which I have not yet read (I'm on the library wait list). I'm sure some would argue that the planet, denuded of humanity, would be much healthier. I'm not sure we have to go that far. What about The World With Everyone Consumed by Self-Doubt?

See, I have a problem with certainty. I can fake it -- sort of -- but, privately, it only has to reach a modest level before I'm fairly convinced (but, obviously, not too convinced) that I'm probably wrong, with the sensation of certainty as my primary evidence. What if everyone were thus paralyzed? Well, I don't think it'd be a case of the rain falling equally on the just and unjust feller. Call it Yeats' law (the worst are full of passionate intensity): there'd be an asymmetric loss of activity on the side of the evils. And, for all of us, we'd think more and do less, which -- with apologies to Sarkozy -- I don't think would be such a bad thing. I'm fairly certain.

As for that spinning lady: putting aside all the unexamined bullcrap about the alleged left/right meaning, her real beauty is in letting us practice what it feels like to have one necessary point-of-view abruptly split into two contingent ones. I just wish that it wasn't the first such experience for so many people. Let's resolve to practice random acts of doubt and senseless ambiguity.

Or not.